It’s Valentine’s Day and few elements of romance are more powerful than music. On this day when lovers express their innermost feelings for each other, OffBeat sought out five couples in New Orleans with both spouses working as musicians. We set about asking just how they met and how they keep harmony on stage and in their private lives.

HARUKA KIKUCHI AND YOSHITAKA “Z2” TSUJI 

Haruka Kikuchi is a trombonist and her husband, Yoshitaka “Z2” Tsuji, is a keyboardist. 

Haruka: Before I moved to New Orleans from Japan in December 2012, I sometimes visited the city. In July 2012, I stayed a whole month by myself here with one of my first friend’s parents. They are not musicians, but my friend’s father owned a bakery shop in town and his daughter was interested in Japanese culture, like anime, manga, etc. I went to see Kermit Ruffins live at the Blue Nile and I saw that a new Asian piano player was playing with Kermit.  Z2 had taken over the keyboard player’s seat from Richard Knox, but I didn’t try to speak him because I didn’t think he was Japanese and I didn’t know any other language at that time.

Then, two days later, the legendary Uncle Lionel Batiste passed away and James Andrews and other Treme musicians led many second lines, which usually started from the Speakeasy Bar that Kermit owned at that time. I just met James Andrews on the bus from uptown to downtown—what a small city!—and he invited me to the second line, so I decided to go. I was just waiting there by the bar when an Asian man came up to me and he spoke in Japanese to me. “Are you Haruka? The trombone player from Japan? Some of my friends talked about you coming here.”

I was so surprised and thought “Who are you?!” I asked, “Excuse me sir, what’s your name?” He said, “I am Z2.”  I was still surprised because Z2 does not sound like a Japanese name! His real last name is Tsuji, which sounds like Two-Zee, so Z2 is his favorite nickname and stage name.

After that day, we met almost every day because I chased the second lines so hard and Z2 was also around Treme with Kermit. Kermit played at Uncle Lionel’s funeral and I was there too. Z2 invited me. I will never forget what I felt from those opportunities. Totally beautiful!
Also, during my summer stay in 2012, Z2 asked me to join him busking in French Quarter, which we did just one time! Z2 was such a modern jazz piano player at that time and I was not. I am a traditional New Orleans music lover, and unfortunately he didn’t know many trad tunes at that time. Now he knows, though! I only know trad tunes. While I was playing “Panama,” an old traditional tune, Marla Dixon, a trumpet player, stopped by and she gave me a card and I began playing with her Shotgun Jazz Band, my first career as a musician in New Orleans. What a lucky life! That trip changed my life, that is my how we met in New Orleans story.

Watch a video of Haruka Kikuchi and other jazz trombonists in OffBeat’s Trombone Talk series. 

 

KATJA TOIVOLA AND LEROY JONES

Leroy Jones is a trumpeter and Katja Toivola is a trombonist. 

Leroy: Katja is from Finland. Her first visit to New Orleans was in the spring of 1995. During her second visit to the city, in 1996, we were officially acquainted. It had been her ambition to make the pilgrimage to the town whose music, culture and history had long been intriguing to her.
On her third trip, she served as a tour guide for a group of Finns on their holiday to the U.S. Consequently, she was also finishing her master’s thesis in ethnomusicology, focusing on New Orleans brass band music, with specific reference to the Rebirth Brass Band’s contribution within that ongoing tradition. I happened to be one of her interviewees. To my delight, I also discovered she played trombone and the bass drum.

We both believe that harmony found in music is also an essential ingredient to a cohesive, successful relationship. In essence, a happy marriage. Like in music, particularly jazz, the music we play, it’s important to listen to each other, and allow space for freedom of expression. In that we have remained in one accord.
We’ve found that our marriage and music work. A testament to the fact is that 2022 will mark 25 years we’ve been together. Our official nuptials took place at the magistrate in Helsinki, on January 25, 2006. The following year, on April 19, we were able to have our wedding ceremony, with all the pomp and circumstance, in New Orleans, surrounded by friends and family from near and afar.

 

JOSHUA PAXTON AND BETH PATTERSON

Joshua Paxton is a pianist and Beth Patterson is a rock bouzouki player.

Beth: One of our rules when it comes to events, birthdays, anniversaries, is take the gig. We don’t give each other grief because we both know how important it is to stay gainfully employed. I had to miss his birthday this year because it was the only time for this fairly lucrative gig out of state and it meant a lot of traveling and he’s never been precious about it, and I feel the same way. We know this has to be done.

Joshua: Of course, having two working musicians as a couple has some challenges but the thing that’s nice about it is that your partner automatically understands what’s required, what that job and that life entails. It can be difficult for non-musicians to get that, and that leads to friction in a lot of relationships, so it’s nice to have that obstacle not be an obstacle.

Beth was one of the first musicians I met when I moved to New Orleans in the mid-90s. We were both playing at the Neutral Ground Coffee House for something like $20 gigs. I had a crush on her back then but I didn’t do anything about it because I considered her to be well out of my league. Shortly after that we both graduated on to better gigs and because we were in very different musical and social circles, we basically didn’t run into each other again for 22 years. Once in a while, we happened to wind up at the same bar at the same time—”Oh, hey”—but that was it. Then we reconnected via Facebook. She was doing a solo tour of Australia, which is something I had wanted to do on my own, but had never taken steps to actually make it happen. So I thought, I don’t know if she even remembers who I am but I’m going to message her and say, hey, can I pick your brain for tips on how to do this? So I did and offered to buy her lunch and said okay. We went to lunch and spent about 10 minutes talking about touring Australia and another two hours telling dirty jokes and funny stories, and now here we are.
Beth: He totally should have asked me out at the Neutral Ground. Of course, I was a totally different person then, so who knows? But I most definitely knew who Josh was when he messaged me about picking my brain about Australia.

When I would tell people this story later, they would say, “Oh, come on, you really had no ulterior motive?” No, I really didn’t. Little did I know that she did!

Beth: One thing about being married as musicians, if we’re binge-watching something, we’ll play a match the pitch game. Before Josh hits play, whether it’s the Netflix bong or the opening note of something with theme music, we’ll each try to get a pitch and see who comes closer.

Joshua: We call it the “TV Theme Song Memory Pitch Game.”

 

LENA PRIMA AND TIM FAHEY

Lena Prima, the daughter of the late singers Louis Prima and Gia Maione, is a vocalist. Tim Fahey is a bass guitar player. They perform on Thursday and Saturday nights at the Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar and Lounge. 

Lena: Here’s the truth. I was a cocktail waitress in a rock ‘n roll bar in Las Vegas and he would come in. He was very drunk and I couldn’t stand him but he liked me so he would sit in my section and tip me big. And he kept coming in. The other waitresses were making fun of him, Oh there’s that bass player guy. I couldn’t stand him, and then we met again ten years later and I sort of remembered his name but he didn’t remember me because by then he was a recovered alcoholic. He’s going to be sober 23 years this month, but back then he didn’t remember meeting me. But I remembered his name and he said, “No, I’ve never been in that club, you must be mistaken!”

Then a few years later I was asked to do a guest spot with a band called John Earl and the Boogie Man Band. They were a well-known blues-rock-type band around Vegas. I went to the rehearsal and he was the band leader and the bass player. So we got talking and then I reminded him again about the rock ‘n’ roll bar that I was working at. Then this realization came over him. That time when we met, in 2002, I thought, “Gosh, I really like this guy.”

After the gig, we went to a Denny’s and had a middle-of-the-night breakfast. We started talking. I was single and if I was going to be in a relationship with someone, I really wanted to be with someone that was on the same kind of spiritual level as me—that our beliefs were similar. I didn’t feel like I could have a successful relationship unless that was there. And I don’t mean religion, I mean a spiritual thing, and so I asked him about that and we had a really deep conversation. He was telling me his beliefs and about God and love. He went up to go to the restroom and a young couple behind me, one of them tapped me on the shoulder and said, “God, you must be so bored!” And I said, “No, exactly the opposite!” I knew that I was so instantly in love with him.

Tim: We were sorta, kinda going out at the time and Lena’s manager at the time had booked a tour for her in the Chicago area. Lena didn’t want to go on the road anymore and pick up musicians in various towns because that’s an issue in itself. Her manager said, “Tim, do you want to go on the road with Lena?” I said you probably need someone who’s really a good acoustic bass player, but he said, no, electric bass would be fine. So I went on the road playing with Lena and gradually our relationship got deeper and we got married in 2005.

 

ROBIN BARNES AND PAT CASEY 

Robin Barnes is a vocalist and Pat Casey is a bass player. They regularly perform together with a band as Da Lovebirds in the Peacock Room at the Kimpton Hotel Fontenot. 

Robin: For us, it was pretty much love at first sight. Pat was living in what he called the “jazz frat,” a house on City Park Avenue where a bunch of jazz musicians were living. I was going in the house for rehearsal and Pat walks out with his upright bass and he’s ducking down through a door and as he gets out in the hallway he looks up and he has this gorgeous smile. He says, “Hi!” And I’m like, “Hi!” Oh my God, who is that? The person I was walking in with, come to find out, he had a crush on me, so he told me Pat’s name was Bob and I never saw Pat again for at least four years. I kept asking, “Where’s Bob?” This city is so small, why have I not run into Bob the bass player? My dad had been my bass player for my entire life and he wanted to step back so I needed to find a new bass player. My best friend, a piano player, Charles James, said, “Well, we’ve got an option, one of the baddest bass players in the city, but I doubt he’ll be available but we can always try and see what happens.” He said his name is Pat Casey, and I thought, okay cool, Pat Casey, I can’t wait to meet him. So Pat walks in with the upright bass and again he ducks down and as he looks up, he’s like “Hi!” And I say, “Bob?” [Laughter] What’s funny is I asked him, “What are you doing for the rest of your life?” And he said, “I guess playing bass with you.” And so he was my bass player full time and then six months later during a Mardi Gras parade we’re standing on a balcony and I cannot believe I did it but I said, “Pat, how would you feel if I told you I liked you?” My husband is a very chill, cool guy, and he was like, “Oh, um, I’d say that’s cool.” So I said, “Okay, will I like you,” and then I just took off running!

Pat: The very first time I met Robin, she had such an incredible smile and looking back, it was almost shocking the first time I met her because whoa, she had a golden aura about her. Then, getting to meet later, playing together, we just formed such a close friendship and the love grew so much from there. But it was love at first sight. I feel like the luckiest guy ever, every day.

Read a cover story about Robin Barnes in the January 2021 edition of OffBeat.

Listen to a podcast interview with Robin Barnes and Pat Casey and Lena Prima conducted on WHIV, 102.3 FM. Tune in every Wednesday at 9 a.m. for Beat Café hosted by David Johnson.